Local Man Arrested for Merchandise Tampering at Area Walmart

Local country fan Reginald Spears was arrested over the weekend for merchandise tampering at the new Super Walmart out on the bypass. The details of his infractions are unique, to say the least.

Third-shift electronics cashier Lena Johnston first noticed Spears rifling through the country CD section and filling a grocery cart with at least 100 discs before leaving the department. She thought he was just a rabid music fan until he returned 15 minutes later with the same cart and began slipping CDs back onto the shelves while looking around suspiciously.

Johnston walked over to Spears and asked if he’d decided not to make the massive music purchase. Spears responded “Yeah, yeah uh, yes ma’am” and began sweating profusely. He became spooked shortly afterwards and haphazardly threw the remainder of his CDs on the shelf before walking away. Johnston investigated the country section and noticed that it was full of unwrapped, well-worn CDs that Spears had apparently brought from his home. Spears was apprehended by security, mostly without incident, before leaving the store.

“I looked on the shelf and where Rascal Flatts was supposed to be, that scruffy looking man had put Flatt & Smugs or something like that… and where Taylor Swift had been, he’d replaced it with Tanya Tucker. I guess he’d stole all them new CDs and tried to replace ‘em with his old junk,” said a perplexed Johnston.

Fresh out on bail, Mr. Spears had a far different story. “I didn’t shoplift nothin’. I told the cops they could find all that country pop bullsh*t in the Rubbermaid garbage cans in home wares… where that crap belongs,” said Spears. “I was just trying to give the people around here some damn culture, so I brought my whole collection up here to give away for free. Of course, I’ve got it all ripped on my laptop. My alphabetizing skills might be lacking, but I ain’t stupid.”

“Can you believe they didn’t have a Jerry Reed CD in the whole god***n store?” he continued. “Well, for 15 shining minutes last Friday night, they did.”

The shoplifting charges against Spears were dropped but he still faces misdemeanor charges of mischief and merchandise tampering. For his part, Reginald is considering legal action against the store.

Spears explained: “They threw all my CDs in the dumpster and broke ‘em, them motherf***ers! I’m suing their asses for destruction of property and mental anguish. I was just trying to help this town out… I’m a by-God patriot!”

The guy has a point. Wal Mart stocks nothing but garbage. And that stupid employee they interviewed should keep her stupid small minded opinions about “old junk” to herself. Nobody’s gonna care about all the “modern country” crap 30 years from now. Scruggs And Flatt (please take note of the actual name the group, Little Miss Barbie Doll) will still have an audience and their albums will still be in print long after Taylor Swift has returned to working retail.

Fake or not, I get the impression by the many Reginald supportive posts that a lot of people are fed up with what is being called county music. I’m here to tell you that it has not disappeared completely. There are many modern country artists writing new songs in a traditional country style. I am one. You can listen to my songs at,http://www.reverbnation.com/austintruax
Also I am writing a blog on song structure that can be read at,http://songwritersecrets.blogspot.com/

If this is real (not fake news, as indicated above), I can’t think of a more brilliant, out-of-the-box move by Walmart than use this to publicize a new line of great country music! They could make a TV campaign based on this story and loudly repent, and hire Reginald Spears as its manager. Of course, this would instantly lead to a thousand copy cats.

2. There is no new line of great country music. Cocktail-waitress beautiful women and three-day bearded guys wearing beat-up cowboy hats and singin’ about dirt roads, yes. Great country music, I think not.

you just haven’t been looking in the right place. There is real country music out there but you won’t find it on pop radio. check out JP Harris and the Tough Choices http://www.myspace.com/thetoughchoices

hmm… what an idiot! at the Wal*Mart I work at, we carry Jerry reed, Tanya tucker and even Hank williams Sr. they don’t sell very well, but, we have them. maybe he should just kill himself. then he wouldn’t need to worry about music they don’t even play on the radio anymore.

you should consider the same.you work at wal-mart.you are garbage.you are a traitor to this country for working to give all our money to the chinese.be a man get a real job or go on welfare.like your blue smok?loser.

you hillbilly slackjaw backwoods hick mthrfckrs!!! If you didn’t rely on Walmart so much that you put all the record stores out of business, you wouldn’t have this problem! Walmart destroys small towns! And all you can do is complain that they don’t have a good country section… don’t you realize they don’t care about you or even the products they sell?? this man is a Hero, but maybe he should have sold those albums in the parking lot instead… why would he want to encourage Walmart to sell them?? pull your head out of your ass! just stop shopping there entirely! good LORD

Strange Powers says that people “relied on Walmart so much that you put all the record stores out of business.” But I dare suggest that iTunes and maybe amazon did far more to put record stores out of business than Walmart (and Target, Best Buy and others).

Anyway, if you go to iTunes, you can find Tanya Tucker and the others that Reggie Spears likes so much. I fact, I dare suggest that the emergence of iTunes makes it easier – not harder – to find older Tanya Tucker records. Its not as if in 2005 small record shops where I lived at the time were full of those kinds of CDs.

I’m also not too nostalgic for “local record shops.” The ones I knew tended to have rather small selections (Sure, bigger than Walmart, but nothing to brag about and mostly dominated by top 40 hit artists), and high prices (In 2004 something I could buy online at amazon for 11.95 might be 18.95 at a “local record shop.”) And the local record shops in my hood weren’t “independent” stores: there was Sam Goody and FYE and the like. There were some used record shops and independent shops but they still exist.

Sure there were the Virgin Megastores and the large Tower Records. But I suspect that most of the music those stores sold can be found at iTunes today.

your missing the point i think. iTunes and the likes most definitely would have downed all the mentioned music stores.but that was because the technology of the way we listen to music changed. iTunes just happened to be the first to tie their noose around the music bizz in other words figure out how to package sell and deliver music better then the record labels. basically creating another middle man and putting us farther from the artist and our cash. don’t get me wrong i love getting music off the internet instantly and i think it is worth a reasonable price.back to the point wal-mart didn’t put music stores out of business but it’s way of doing business and it relentless pursuit of profit for itself and no other has caused a chain reaction of events that have led to the demise of our country’s economic strength.wal-mart helped us save all that money back then but now we are paying it all back ten fold with inflation and unemployment.do you think wal-mart really cares about us or our problems?no they deal with china and all our enemy’s even as those same country’s want us to fail and falter.look deeper . the story was a joke but its message is clear to me.corporations are not people and they shouldn’t be given rights like a person.what kind of american dream is there if every one who wants to make their own way and do what they love to make money to survive has to compete with big corporations like wal-mart,exxon,pepsi-co,etc.they have used their money and power to fix the game within our government so they always win.the solution is easy lets pay for it.buy your music from the internet,pay extra for your groceries at locally owned shops,have your car repaired by a local mechanic,hire builders who only use domestic labor force and not immigrants,go solar,and vote for independent politicians who are not on the lobby payroll and stop going to wal-mart!

I think he should have also increased the prices on all of Walmart’s merchandise. They are only able to offer such low prices by oppressing workers all over the world. We need to consume less and pay fair prices for things.

The charges should be dropped. As a general rule (state statutes and local ordinances can vary), merchandise tampering requires some sort of deliberate alteration of merchandise, not merely moving it from one place in the store to another. As a general rule (again, individual state statutes and local ordinances can vary), criminal mischief requires some degree of intentional destruction of another’s property without the right to do so. The only property destroyed belonged to the accused — and Walmart did it. I bet the Walmart people won’t be charged. Any takers?

Mr.Spears might have went at this in the wrong way, but he did make a statement. a lot of people are sick and tired of crap that walmart and other retail business are trying to push down peoples throws.
their are millions of elderly people that shop at walmart,s.and they buy cd ,s and most are not interested in to day’s music.I think that retail business should relocate back down in the main part of the town’s.that would give walmart owners something to thank about.

My favorite comment I’ve read anywhere about this story: “That site has discovered something The Onion never figured out: If you make sure your “funny” news story isn’t very funny, people will believe it’s true. :razz:”

I feel like doing the same thing, when I am behind a “family” with kids, grocery cart filled with boxes of processed food, fake food, sugar and chemicals. puffed bread and American cheese. Just drop some carrots, lentils and fruit, then run.

I can’t believe how many people are commenting on an article that says it is from the FAKE NEWS archive! Written by ‘Trailer” Parkman of FARCE the Music. It’s a JOKE people!

The name of “Flatts and Scruggs” is intentionally wrong. Because it’s FUNNY. But no wheres near as funny as seeing how many of you people fell for the farce! This is NOT a real story. It’s a FARCE. It did not happen.Get it? Laugh!

I blogged about this at http://www.retrokustomhonkytonk.com. Damn near busted a gut reading it. “Flatt & Smugs” had me rollin’ on the floor. I’ve subscribed to the RSS and am lookin’ forward to your further work.

Bubba should promote a few concerts for Walmart Parking Lots across the country. Can you see it? A guy like Bubba, that ear for music he has….. are you kidding me? He can even provide his own security…. who’s gonna go up against a bare bottomed guy in overalls like Bubba!

All you intellectual liberals commenting on country music, crime, culture, am I the only one to notice that this entire incident (and the following one, same guy, same picture, same “reporter”) are both identified at the site as Fake News?

This guy is a Folk Hero…doing what I dreamed of doing at a Border’s Music or Barnes & Noble for years, but ultimately chickened-out.

We should all send him one ‘real’ country music or bluegrass CD to help replace (or add to) his collection…which the Police Censors so disgustingly and senslessly destroyed. Are these guys too ignorant to consider donating those CDs to a local library or school, rather than destroy musical works of art?

Is it legal for police officers to make the unilateral decision to censor and destroy works of art in California? Would they even know a decent piece of music if they heard it??

Anyway, I love this guy’s vocabulary…and absolutely love these lines:

“My alphabetizing skills might be lacking, but I ain’t stupid.”

“Can you believe they didn’t have a Jerry Reed CD in the whole god***n store?”

Hey Lena,
Must be paying you mucho bucks to not only be a cashier, but worrying about security too! Stick to your job and leave security to just that. It’s people like you who contribute to the loss of jobs and then complain they’re doing the job of five people and not being paid enough! HA

They must be paying this cashier mucho bucks. Not only a cashier, but doing security work too! It’s people like this who take the jobs away from others and then complain they have to do the work of five and not paid enough. Do your own job and if your that ambitious, get your company to send you back to school.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…………the poor guy wasn’t playing by the rules of society, but then again the rules of society are written by elitist bureaucrats in government, who as we know, break rules consistantly whenever they feel the urge to do so. Mind you they hire a high powered (expensive) Attorney who “bends” those rules of society and gets his client off with a slapped wrist. Life was never fair, and it’s getting worse since Politicians, Attorneys, and Judges have become so prolific.

It’s funny, I always read things on the net about how we should boycott walmart and i’ve seen the documentary “high price of low cost” but everytime I pass by my local wal-mart, the place is packed to the hilt. all mom & pop places are dead in my town, walmart rules the roost. as much as a FEW people my be aware of the situation, the reality is, there are simply too many people to make a difference

Seriously? Sounds like he was just replacing one type of country crap with another. Country music is for redneck, inbred trailer trash, oh… wait, I guess that’s most of the people that shop at Walmart.

I totally agree with Josef Bleaux (though I think the insult at country fans is a bit extreme). But yeah, that’s the problem with a lot of online blogs about country. The fact is, he really just is replacing one version of country with another, and its really hard to say that one kind is in any meaningful way better than the other.

A lot of people love to mock Luke Bryan or Blake Shelton. But a lot of the heroes of country music recorded songs that are hardly any better than “Boys Round Here” or “Crash My Party.”

Whether its George Jones or Blake Shelton, its mindless entertainment designed primarily not for music fans but for advertisers. Its non offensive and it allows the radio station to deliver an audience to the real customer of country music – the advertiser.

Ive got no problem if someone prefers Flatt and Scruggs to Taylor Swift. But what ticks me off is these morons who complain about how bad today’s country is and then turn around an listen to stuff that is equally crappy.

i agree this guy is cool to do this even in canada if you walk into a walmart or any store that sells cds of music its always the new generation of crap they are selling you cant even find a moe bandy disk or some other great music that was around in the 70’s and 80’s this generation of life we are living doesnt mean that they have to put out the people that like the older stuff. the world is selfish and the music stores only want to sell what they think will sell. not giving the older generation a right to buy as well.

[…] of the old top-down model collided with the fan-as-a-tastemaker concept recently in a satirical, fake news piece from CountryCalifornia.com. In this satirical narrative, Reginald Spears was arrested for adding his own boutique country […]

[…] Country, and CajunBy Andrew Meyer – June 3, 2012Posted in: Columns So I came across this fake news story about a man who replaced pop-country CDs in WalMart with his own CD collection. The article is […]

[…] him? Give him a MEDAL!!! Local Man Arrested for Merchandise Tampering at Area Walmart | Country California I want to personally invite Mr. Spears on a music shopping spree at my local Wallyworlds!!! I to […]